


a dream is a wish your heart makes

by callunavulgari



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Disney World & Disneyland, F/F, Genderswap, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Axel takes her little sister to Disney World, does six impossible things before breakfast, and just maybe, has her dreams come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a dream is a wish your heart makes

**Author's Note:**

> This started with the picture below and quickly turned into the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. I've never been to Disney, much to my chagrin (read: to my screaming, weeping, sorrow) so I had to spend a depressing amount of time researching the going-ons of Disney World, so if there's anything not quite right, I did my best. I had vague ideas for the future of this verse, namely Roxy's brother Sora being Mickey Mouse and hitting it off with Kairi, but also the rest of their trip there, including more scenes with the relationship that started this fic since the sibling bond between Kairi and Axel kind of took over the fic. So I'm going to mark it as a chapter fic, even though there's a possibility it'll just stay as is. Have fun reading this, and go visit the walt disney world tag of 8tracks if you want a great soundtrack to the fic itself.

 

Axel’s never really had much of a desire to go to Disney World before—she just wasn’t that kind of kid when she was growing up. She was more concerned with soccer and beating boys up on the playground than she was about dressing up like a pretty princess and watching a bunch of silly movies. Which wasn’t to say that she’d never seen disney movies—she would have had to live under a rock to never _ever_ see one. Hell, she’d gone through a brief phase where she wanted to grow up to be Rafiki—not allowing herself to be swayed when her mother informed her that not even considering her inability to turn into a baboon, she’d be better off if she started hero worshipping Belle or Jasmine.  
  
She has a particularly interesting memory from high school where she, Demyx, Larxene, and a couple of their other friends had dropped acid in Xigbar’s basement and watched Alice and Wonderland—where colors had bloomed behind her eyelids and flowers chattered at her.  
  
But no, she’d never been the child begging her parents to go see Cinderella and Mickey, more than happy enough to stay at home and kick a ball around the backyard.  
  
Kairi, though, had always been enthralled by all of it. The age difference between them being what it was—nearly nine years—Axel had always been the one she’d begged to take her to the upcoming movies. Apparently it was cooler for an eight year old to go to the movies with their seventeen year old big sister than it was going with her parents, so after Axel got her own car, she got roped into seeing a lot of fairy tale movies.  
  
Kairi’s always been great about twisting Axel around her little finger, so it isn’t much of a surprise when Axel finds herself getting a phone call from her little sister asking, _please, please, pretty please won’t you take me to Disney World?_  
  
“Why can’t mom do it?” she asks, tucking the phone under her chin and squinting at the brush strokes across the canvas. She glances back at Larxene, scowled, and started reshaping a nipple.  
  
“Because, Lea,” Kairi harrumphs, her voice coming out tinny and crackly.  
  
“Don’t call me that,” Axel sighs, unsurprised when her sister ignores her completely.  
  
“You know mom, she won’t be able to get off work and dad has been putting it off for years.”  
  
Axel rolls her eyes skyward and accidently smears paint on herself when she swipes a hand across her brow. “Yeah, but why now, Kai?”  
  
Kairi’s quiet for a moment. She must be home alone, because her end of the line is dead silent, none of the screaming and shouting from back when they were young. “I turn seventeen this week. I don’t want to get too old to do this.”  
  
Axel scoffs. “I have it on good authority that you can never get too old for Disney World—” Kairi starts to protest, so Axel has to raise her voice to override her sister’s. “— _But_ fine. I sold a couple paintings earlier this week, so I’ve got a little extra moolah saved up. When did you wanna go?”  
  
She has to hold the phone away from her ear so she isn’t deafened by Kairi’s shrieks.  
  
Larxene smirks at her from across the room, sprawled naked in Axel’s sheets, blonde hair still tousled from sleep and lines from Axel’s pillows across her cheek. The smirk doesn’t go away when Axel hangs up with a promise to call Kairi in a few days.  
  
“Oh shut up,” she growls, tossing the paintbrush at Larxene.  
  
“Hey, it’s adorable that your baby sister’s got you wrapped around her little finger,” Larxene shrugs, scratching at the streak of paint the brush left on her skin. “Also, I didn’t say anything.”  
  
Axel gives her an incredulous look. “I’ve been friends with you since I was thirteen. Trust me, you don't  _have_ to say anything.”  
  
Larxene laughs, stretching languidly—her back arching off the sheets until her spine pops. “I’m not too sure if that’s the best word for our relationship, Ax.”  
  
Axel frowns at her. “And what _would_ the best word be?” she drawls, fanning the canvas lazily. “Fuck buddies? Acquaintances who appreciate each other’s more _biting_ qualities? _Frenemies_?”  
  
Larxene smirks at her, sliding gracefully from the sheets and fumbling around for her clothes. “I’d call it being two unrepentant bitches who tolerate each other for the sake of biting commentary, the occasional drunken movie marathon, and the even more occasional round of really fantastic sex.”    
  
Axel rolls her eyes, plucking the other girl’s underwear from atop the air conditioner and tossing them to her. She snickers when Larxene shudders from the chill as she’s yanking them up around her hips. “Frigid panties for a frigid pussy,” she teases, laughing again when Larxene just gives her the one fingered salute, not looking up from her quest for her jeans.  
  
“They’re over by the bookshelf,” she provides helpfully. “And your shirt’s under the bed.”  
  
“How 'bout my bra?” Larxene asks.  
  
Axel grins. “You aren’t getting that one back.”  
  
Larxene glares at her. She shrugs it off after a couple seconds, wandering over to Axel’s chest of drawers. “Fine, I’ll just steal one of yours then.”  
  
Axel laughs. “They aren’t gonna fit you.”  
  
Another withering look. “I’ll use a sports bra. Even you don’t have small enough tits that one of those won’t fit me.”  
  
The first one doesn’t, but the second one does.  
  
“Don’t I get a kiss?” Axel teases once the other girl’s already halfway out the door.  
  
Mockingly, Larxene blows her a kiss.  
  
.  
  
The plane ride’s only a few hours long, which is a good thing because Kairi is positively giddy the entire flight, bouncing in her seat beside Axel and talking a mile a minute about everything they should try to do at the park.  
  
Axel’s never liked planes. Ever. They make her queasy and give her a killer headache to boot, so it doesn’t matter how gorgeous the view is when just the lift off the ground is threatening to make her blow chunks. She’d have preferred driving, probably, but cost-wise and time-wise it had been a bad idea. So she suffers in silence, listening to her baby sister chatter at her enthusiastically while she tries not to redecorate the seat in front of her.  
  
“Just so you know, this is your Christmas and birthday presents for the next seven years,” she tells Kairi as she forks over her card to the lady behind the desk at their hotel. Even going for one of the “value” resorts, the Disney’s All Star Music resort is still gonna cost her nearly $200 a night, which is absolutely ridiculously, but hell, she’d known what she was getting into when she booked the flight. At least the package deal she’d gotten killed the cost a little, but seriously.  
  
Kairi nods at her, still bouncing slightly on her feet. There’s a wide grin on her face as she takes in everything around them, which makes Axel soften ever so slightly. She figures it’s probably at least a little worth it if it makes Kairi smile like that.  
  
“Shame Reno couldn’t be here,” Kairi grins at her as Axel’s tucking her wallet back into her pocket. Axel looks at her, incredulous, and Kairi giggles.  
  
“You’re kidding me, right? Older brother or not, if you think he’d fork over a penny, you better rethink some things about that dickhead.”  
  
Kairi laughs again, a nostalgic smile playing around her lips.  
  
“Zack would have helped,” she shrugs after a moment, and Axel stiffens a little bit.  
  
“Yeah, he would have,” she says quietly.  
  
The walk to their room is done mostly in silence, not quite uneasy but certainly not uncomfortable. Zack is still considered ‘officially’ MIA, and she knows that Kairi still has some hope that their older brother is out there somewhere, but Axel was fourteen when he went missing and she gave up hope a long time ago that her brother was coming home to them. Talking about him still makes her heart seize up, remembering piggy back rides and songs shrieked in the backseat of his old clunker car, back when he was her sixteen year old big brother, laughing at everything, and not that one guy who went missing during a war.  
  
The room is smaller than she’d thought it would be, just two twin beds, a flat-screen television, and a small bathroom off to the side, but Kairi still gives an excited shriek anyway, hurling herself onto the bed closest to the window.  
  
Axel chuckles at her, tossing her stuff down by the other bed. “Don’t get too excited Kai, you’re gonna need to get some sleep so we can wake up early tomorrow.”  
  
Kairi groans and rolls around the bed a little, dramatically tugging at her hair. “How am I supposed to sleep?” she asks wretchedly, bottom lip curved into a pout.  
  
Axel rolls her eyes, flopping down onto her own bed. “I could knock you out,” she suggests idly, punching the pillow beneath her. It’s too fluffy.  
  
Her sister laughs at her. “Think I’ll pass on that.”  
  
Axel shrugs, arching her back a little to try to pop the kinks out. It doesn't work very well. “I think I have some advil PM if you wanna try that?”  
  
Kairi considers her for a moment, blowing a raspberry in her direction. “Think I’ll only try that as a last resort.”  
  
They sit in silence for another couple minutes, Axel fiddling with some of the brochures she’d gotten in the lobby. “Apparently they’ve got a guitar-shaped pool here,” she suggests, flipping through the pages. “And a music-themed food court, whatever that means. Or! Or we can order pizza, I guess.”  
  
Kairi grins at her. “Pool, then foodcourt?” she asks hopefully, rolling off the bed.  
  
Axel sighs. “Reverse the order and you’ve got yourself a deal.”  
  
Kairi makes a show of weighing the options before she grins again, throwing her hand out.  
  
“Done!”  
  
.  
  
The pool was pretty neat, but it was almost too crowded—and they’d both retreated to the quieter Piano pool after a few minutes of getting splashed by toddlers. “They’ve got a movie thing going on tonight,” she says to Kairi, who’s busy paddling around the pool. “Back at the Calypso pool. Guess they’re showing _The Little Mermaid._ ”  
  
“I’d be okay with that,” Kairi responds, rolling over to float on her back.  
  
“This feels like a dream,” Kairi tells her after a minute, her eyes closed as she floats blissfully.  
  
“You’ve only wanted to come here since you were four,” she teases, flicking water in her sister’s direction. Kairi giggles and kicks water back in her face.  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s been a dream of mine since I knew what Disney _was_ ,” she says wistfully, grinning up at the fading sunlight.  
  
“The place where dreams come true,” Axel sings quietly, giggling when Kairi shrieks and flings more water in her direction.  
  
.  
  
In the end, Kairi hadn’t needed to take anything for sleep, the flight combined with a good meal and swimming away most of the evening knocked her out almost immediately after returning to their room.  
  
Axel was a completely different story. For the first half of the night she tossed and turned, trying in vain to beat the pillows into submission, and once she actually drifted off close to three in the morning, she kept waking up every few hours—bleary-eyed and cursing at the clock.  
  
By the time they get into the park, she’s starting to feel it in spite of the four cups of coffee she’d downed in the food court earlier, the scrambled eggs and sausage roiling in her stomach.  
  
“Sorry, Kai, but there is no way I’m getting on a rollercoaster today,” she groaned, eying the bouncing toddlers in front of them with trepidation. If one of them accidentally knocks into her, she’s not entirely sure if she’ll be able to refrain from vomiting everywhere.  
  
Kairi, unperturbed, shrugs. “We can always go to the Animal Kingdom or Epcot today, save the Magic Kingdom for later.”  
  
Axel sighs. “I can’t believe you want to try to hit all the parks.”  
  
Kairi blows a raspberry at her. “Please, I don’t know when I’m coming back, if I am at all. I wanna see it all.”  
  
“Kai, pretty sure if you ever have kids, they’re coming here as often as you can take them.”  
  
That seems to perk her up, because she prances off into the crowd, making Axel have to pick up her pace. Once she catches up to her sister, Axel pants, “We’re already here anyway. Might as well see Cinderella’s Castle and shit.”  
  
“Language,” Kairi chides, gesturing at the kids clustered around them.  
  
Axel rolls her eyes, but doesn’t protest. She doesn’t want any pissed off moms confronting her, because she’s pretty sure if she got her and Kairi kicked out of the park for throwing down with some middle-aged bitch on their first day, Kairi would murder her, making sure no one ever found the body.  
  
“So, where to first?”  
  
.  
  
Their first stop is Adventureland, deciding to tackle the Magic Kingdom clockwise, that way they can kind of loop back around to Cinderella’s castle for the nighttime shows.

Adventureland is interesting enough. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride is fun and so are the flying carpets. Kairi seems to like it, getting Axel to take a picture of her with Tinkerbell and a couple of the other characters they find wandering around.  
  
It’s not very crowded, either, which is to say that the lines aren’t quite as long as Axel was expecting. Still, by the time they get through Frontierland and Liberty Square it’s just past mid-day, the high noon sun beating uncomfortably down on their backs. She’s glad she remembered the sun screen, because both her and Kairi burn like the poor, pale redheads they are and becoming a lobster would put a bit of a damper on things. She suggest stopping somewhere for lunch, but apparently Kairi wants to wait until they get to the Be Our Guest restaurant.  
  
The restaurant in question isn’t too far away, so they stop at a couple Peter Pan themed attractions on their way—making sure they get a picture with the character himself, who is just as awesome as all the stories made them believe.  
  
The restaurant is entirely too expensive, but it’s cool, relatively quiet, and the food is pretty superb—french onion soup and steak sandwiches that absolutely melt in her mouth.  
  
“We should probably wait a bit before riding the tea cups,” Kairi says as they’re leaving, pleasantly full with a brand new layer of sunscreen applied.  
  
“Yeah, probably,” Axel agrees, still trying to get her wallet shoved back into her backpack.  
  
Ariel’s grotto is neat, and Ariel herself coos at both of their hair, even reaching out to try to comb a fork through Kairi’s. It’s adorable as hell, and Axel snaps another picture when Kairi isn’t looking. By the time they’re done here, she’s gonna be out of space on her phone if she doesn’t regularly dump them all on Kairi’s facebook en masse.  
  
They meet Alice near the teacups, and that’s when things get a little bit different, because the first thing Alice does is seize a hold of Axel’s arm and start inspecting her tattoos.  
  
“These are gorgeous,” she says in a faux-British accent, her heart-shaped little face crinkling up in delight. She turns Axel’s arm over carefully, tracing her fingers across an image of a heart, done realistically enough that most people either cringe away from it or compliment Axel for getting it anatomically correct.  
  
The Alice is absurdly cute, huge blue eyes framed by long lashes that don’t appear to be fake. She’s about two heads shorter than Axel and young enough that she feels immediately guilty for giving her a quick once-over.  
  
Axel shrugs. “They’re okay, I guess,” she says quietly, feeling uncharacteristically shy.  
  
Beside her, Kairi scoffs, making Axel jump. “Please,” Kairi says, rolling her eyes. “She designed most of those herself. Modesty really doesn’t suit you, Axel.”  
  
Alice grins and hops up and down a little. “Oh, you must have had the most wonderful adventures!” she croons, still stroking down Axel’s arm. There’s an infinity symbol done in black against the pale underside of Axel’s wrist, and that’s where Alice’s hand comes to a halt, her fingers circling the fragile skin there. “Did you fall down a rabbit hole as well?” she chirps, and Axel can only marvel at how good of a damn actress she is, because if this were a disney film, there would be hearts in this girl’s eyes.  
  
Kairi clears her throat and Axel startles to attention, realizing that she’s been standing there staring at a Disney employee like an absolute dumbass. There’s a bit of mischief in the girl’s eyes now, as if she knows exactly what’s going on and is utterly amused by it.  
  
Axel coughs. “Nope, no rabbit holes for me. Least not since high school.”  
  
Kairi makes an enraged little noise and elbows her, her eyes wide, but the little Alice just laughs—her dainty little fingers still touching Axel.  
  
The grin she turns on Axel then really is mischievous, making Axel’s heart do a weird little flip in her chest. “Was the Queen of Hearts there, as well? I’ll have you know that she’s the meanest old lady—she tried to take my head, you know! It was terrible.”  
  
The frown she adopts when she says this is just as adorable as her grin, the skin between her brows scrunching up and her bow lips pouting.  
  
Axel laughs. “No Queen of Hearts for me, but the Blue Caterpillar certainly made an appearance that evening.”  
  
Kairi gasps again, hissing something that sounds like _I can’t believe you_ as she turns this way and that, looking around for any eavesdropping kids, like they’d understand what Axel is talking about at all.  
  
Alice giggles again, before finally dropping Axel’s hand and turning to Kairi. Her wrist tingles.  
  
“And who pray tell are you, little princess?” Alice asks, grinning at her.  
  
“Kairi,” Kairi responds, giving a weird little half-curtsy that the Alice returns with a smile. “I apologize for my sister, she’s been good all day, promise.”  
  
“Nonsense,” the little Alice chides. “Being a good girl is all well and good, but I find that you miss out on the most wonderful adventures if you aren’t naughty on _occasion_ , and to miss out on an adventure... why, that would just be dreadful!”  
  
Axel chuckles a little. “Six impossible things before breakfast, right?”  
  
Alice nods. “Quite right! Life without fantasy would be a bore, and what is life, but a dream?”  
  
They grin at each other for another minute, before Axel becomes aware of her sister glaring at her. She clears her throat. “Well, we were thinking about riding the tea cups,” she admits, scuffing her shoes against the pavement. A flash of disappointment flares up in the little Alice’s eyes before she banishes it with another grin.  
  
“They are rather fun, and quite impossible, you’ll find. Only five more things to go.”  
  
Axel laughs with her. “It’s far past breakfast,” she teases gently and just like that she realizes that she’s standing in the middle of Walt Disney World flirting with the Alice face character.  
  
They stand there staring at each other for another moment before they both make a move at the same time, Axel stretching a hand out so she doesn’t do something stupid like curtsy and the Alice moving in like she was going to whisper something in Axel’s ear. The result is both of them freezing, entirely too close, and neither completing their movements.  
  
After another second, Alice draws back and curtsies, like that’s what she was about to do all along. “Well,” the Alice starts, her smile back in place. She stops though, her smile quirking weirdly like she doesn’t know what she’d been about to say.  
  
“Oh, for gods sake, already,” Kairi puts in, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at them. “Invite her along, won’t you? You _can_ ride the rides with us, can’t you?”  
  
Wordlessly, the Alice nods, but she looks a bit bemused.  
  
“But usually it’s just with kids, right?” Axel says.  
  
Alice’s shoulders twitch, like she’d been about to shrug before she remembered herself. She sighs once, before straightening up and fixing them both with a determined look. “Don’t be silly,” she finally says. “One can’t put an _age_ on having fun.”  
  
.  
  
They ride the teacups together, Kairi occasionally shooting them both exasperated looks in between giggles as they spin. Apparently her annoyance with Axel has passed, because she snaps a couple pictures on the ride—a few of all of them, clustered close together as the world spins around them and one of just Axel and the Alice grinning at each other that she’d snuck when they weren’t looking.  
  
By the time they stumble off the ride they’re all giggling, and Alice offers to escort them to the Cheshire Cafe before they go on their way. It’s only a few paces away, but they still end up having to stop several times for her to speak with the kids who run up to her, prattling away.  
  
She’s great with them, of course, but then, Axel’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have this job if she wasn’t.  
  
The Cheshire Cafe has a bit of a line, but Axel gets her iced-coffee easily enough, passing Kairi a lemonade when she rejoins them at a table.  
  
“Well,” Alice says, springing up out of her chair. “I’m sure the two of you have more ahead of you before the day is done, so I—”  
  
She breaks off, biting her lip, before darting in close and pressing her lips up against Axel’s ear.  
  
“Six impossible things,” she whispers. “Find me after the parade.”  
  
Her real voice is smokier than the one she adopts for Alice, almost raspy, and the sound of it makes Axel bite her own lip and shift, her thighs rubbing together. Alice starts to pull back before she gives a little oh and leans back in.  
  
“Also, my name is Roxy.”  
  
With a last little curtsy to Kairi, she flounces back into the crowd, leaving Axel to face her sister alone.  
  
Kairi arches a brow at her. “Well, are you gonna tell me what she said?”  
  
Axel blushes and Kairi makes a noise of disgust. “Y’know what, tell me later. I’m feeling the urge to go ride Space Mountain a million times.”  
  
.  
  
“So, are you actually going to tell me what she said to you?” Kairi asks later, when the sun is just starting to dip below the horizon. The parade should be starting soon, which has Axel’s gut in knots as she picks apart her cotton candy.  
  
“She uh, told me to find her after the parade. And that her name is Roxy,” Axel says quietly.  
  
Kairi stops dead, staring at her in surprise. “You know they can get fired for people knowing their real name, right?”  
  
Axel shrugs, shrinking beneath the intensity of her sister’s glare. “It’s not like I’m going to spread it around or something, I’m not stupid. Don’t wanna pop the Disney bubble after all.”  
  
“Yeah, but Lea, do you have any idea how big of a deal it is that she told you that _on the clock_?”  
  
Axel bites down the urge to snap at her for the name and instead chews on her lip anxiously. “A lot, judging by your reaction.”  
  
“Yeah, a lot.” Kairi stares at her for another minute, shaking her head. “God, we’re at Disney World, and you’re still picking up chicks. It’s not even Gay Day!” she goes on, her voice rising in pitch until the last bit is almost a shriek.  
  
“What can I say, I got game.”  
  
Kairi narrows her eyes. “You sure got something, all right.”  
  
“Hey! Is that any way to talk to your big sister who just dropped three grand to get you here!” Axel snaps half-heartedly.  
  
They walk in silence for a little while, the quiet stretching uncomfortably. Eventually Kairi clears her throat and tosses her candy apple into a nearby trashcan. “So, are you going to find her?” she asks, almost timid.  
  
Axel bites her lip and shrugs again. “I dunno, what would we even do? I’m at Disney World, where she works, with my baby sister. Not exactly the best place for a random hook-up, and we live more than six-hundred miles away.”  
  
Kairi’s too quiet, staring down at her feet, oddly contemplative. “Yeah, but you didn’t see the way she was looking at you. It was like you were her _moon and stars_ , Axel. Like she couldn’t see anything but you.” Kairi snorts. “Hell, she didn’t even notice me until I said something, and she’s paid to pay attention to the guests.”  
  
“That is the corniest metaphor I have ever heard, Kai, jesus. Moon and stars? You’ve gotta get your head out of those romance books.”  
  
Kairi blushes. “Shut up, it’s all I could think of. And it was a simile, dumbass.”  
  
They come to a stop near the fountain just outside of Cinderella’s Castle where there’s already a decent crowd gathered, blockades blocking off portions of the street. “I’m serious, though,” Kairi says, shifting awkwardly. “As cheesy as it sounds, this is a place where dreams come true. If you being happy means I have to spend a night alone at the resort, it’s a price that I’m willing to pay.”  
  
When Axel shoots her a skeptical look, she just shakes her head. “I told you, you didn’t really see the way the two of you were looking at each other. I’ve seen you flirt before, Ax, and this was nothing like you angling for a night in her bed. This was something more.”  
  
Axel sighs again, jumping a little when the music starts to swell around them, signaling the start of the parade. “Fine, Kai. We’ll go look for her after, okay? God, why are you encouraging me, she’s like twelve.”  
  
That finally gets a laugh out of her. “They don’t even start hiring until eighteen, Axel. So she’s legal at most.”  
  
“If you say so,” Axel says, her voice nearly drowned out when the announcer’s voice cuts across all the cheering.  
  
The parade is very loud and very bright, mostly, but even to Axel it’s pretty magical. The combination of the music and the sight of that first float has made Kairi choke up beside her, so she spends a good couple of minutes rubbing her sister’s back, pretending to ignore the tears streaking down Kairi’s cheeks.  
  
Roxy’s floats are the third group to come down the street—right after the one with Mickey and Minnie on it—Axel’s heart flip-flopping when she notices Roxy herself seated atop a huge cheshire cat, grinning and waving at everyone. She’s pretty sure that Kairi notices her blushing, because she gets jostled in the ribs a few times before Roxy fades from view. After that come Cinderella, Dumbo, Peter Pan, and a whole slew of Disney characters, the floats all just as elaborate as the ones that came before them.  
  
By the time the patriotic float goes by, Kairi’s crying again.  
  
This doesn’t stop her from grinning and jostling Axel with another elbow to the ribs. “Jesus, your elbows are pointy, cut it out.”  
  
Kairi’s grinning through her tears, her eyes red, when she says, “Go find her. By the time you catch up, she’ll probably be looking for you.”  
  
Axel scoffs. “I’m not leaving you here.”  
  
“Yeah, you are. You’d have to drag me away from this spot, it’s a great place to see the fireworks.”  
  
“You can see the fireworks anywhere in the park.”  
  
Kairi gestures to the castle before them, lit up in gorgeous pinks and blues. “Seriously? I’m not leaving.”  
  
She shoves at Axel a little, giggling.  
  
Axel knows when to bow out gracefully.  
  
She goes.  
  
.  
  
Finding Roxy isn’t easy. The crowd is so thick that it takes her nearly an hour to get back near Frontierland and even there it’s so crowded that she starts feeling a little bit silly for thinking she’d be able to pick out one person in all this mess, even if that one person is a Disney princess.  
  
She finds her standing off to the side, beneath a couple wayward trees where the crowd is thinnest. She isn’t in costume—make-up scrubbed from her face, wig gone, and her blue pinafore replaced with jeans and a tank top. The only sign that she’d ever been wearing one is the matted, slightly sweaty short blonde hair plastered to her scalp.  
  
She looks like a different person, which is why Axel stands there second-guessing herself for entirely too long before Roxy looks her way, blue eyes lighting up in recognition.  
  
“Only four more impossible things to go,” she chirps when Axel reaches her, grinning so brightly that Axel feels like she’s been punched in the chest.  
  
“I still say that it doesn’t count since it’s after breakfast,” Axel says, tucking her hands into her pockets.  
  
“I never specified _todays_ breakfast,” Roxy says, sidling up next to her. “You’ve got all night.”  
  
She’s even shorter without Alice’s tiny heels, barely coming up to Axel’s chest now that she’s just wearing a pair of very worn flip-flops. As if she’s reading her mind, Roxy takes that moment to frown and say, “You are ridiculously tall, it’s not fair.”  
  
“Pretty sure you’re just short,” Axel laughs. Her hand keeps twitching with the urge to take a hold of Roxy’s, so she jams them both even further into her pockets, making her jeans slide down her hips a bit.  
  
They trail off into an only mildly uncomfortable silence.  
  
“Oh!” Roxy says suddenly. “Where’s your sister?”  
  
“Back near Cinderella’s Castle,” Axel shrugs. “She told me that I couldn’t pry her away before the fireworks if I tried.”  
  
“First timer?” she asks with a knowing look. When Axel nods, she smiles. “She’s got that look about her. Mostly it’s the kids who’ve got it, but we get the occasional teenager who have the same glow, like they’ve waited their whole lives to see this place.”  
  
Axel chuckles. “Yeah, she’s wanted to come here since she was really little, but our family never had the money. Luckily for her, I sold a couple paintings two weeks ago that went for 5k and well, she’s had me wrapped around her little finger since I first got to hold her, so I figured, hey, why not.”  
  
This time Roxy’s grin is soft and sweet. “Most people wouldn’t drop that much money on their sisters, hell, I know my brother wouldn’t.”  
  
Axel shrugs. “She deserves it, that’s all. It’s not like it’s that much of an inconvenience.”  
  
Roxy hums in acknowledgment. “How long are you two here for?”  
  
Axel bites her lip. “Only a week. We flew in from Michigan yesterday and our flight’s this coming Wednesday.”  
  
Roxy pouts, chewing on her lip like she’s contemplating something very seriously. After a moment, she nods, that same determined look from earlier coming over her face, like he mind’s made up.  
  
“Welp,” she murmurs, reaching towards Axel. “Better make the best of it while you’re here.”  
  
She gets a hand hooked around the back of Axel’s neck, tugging gently until Axel’s at her level, and kisses her.  
  
It feels like everything she’s been missing her entire life hits her all at once, a suckerpunch to the gut. It’s everything she’s been missing having one-night stands with random fuckers she picks up at bars—even Larxene, the closest thing she’s ever had to a steady fuck was nothing like this.  
  
She makes a surprised sound into the other girl’s mouth, inhaling the smell of her—the too clean smell of make-up remover and the lingering scent of her Alice costume, beneath that a very subtly sweet perfume—momentarily unsure of where she should put her hands before giving up on thinking, sighing into the kiss as she settles them both at the small of Roxy’s back.  
  
Axel gives a little moan of contentment, deepening the kiss as Roxy goes up on tiptoe to get better access, fisting a hand in Axel’s hair.  
  
Neither of them really notice when the fireworks start going off.  
  
  



End file.
